Diversity and Inclusion

Trust’s diversity and inclusion statement

The Trust aspires to be diverse and inclusive in its role as both and NHS service provider and as an employer. We are committed to continually improving our services and ensuring that these are safe, personalised, accessible and recovery-focused for all our patients, service users, visitors and carers. We are also committed to providing excellent employment experience for those who work within our services.

The Trust will work to ensure that neither our service users nor our staff are subjected to any form of discrimination, harassment and/or bullying, including for (but not exclusive to) reasons relating to the ‘protected characteristics’ as set out in the Equality Act 2010.

To read the Trust’s diversity and inclusion statement in full, click here.

Trust diversity and inclusion strategy 2016/20

The importance of having a culture of diversity and inclusion within businesses of all kinds is increasingly recognised in terms of its human and bottom line impact. A wide range of benefits have been identified for both service users and staff arising from developing a strong culture of both diversity and inclusion.

The Trust has set out its approach to developing and embedding a culture of both diversity and inclusion over the next four years, including its overview action plan, in our diversity and inclusion strategy. This document is based on the findings and conclusions drawn from a range of information about our workforce, our service users and our local population and communities, as set out in the documents below. This strategy not only enables us to meet our legal and NHS contractual requirements in relation to equality, but also helps us to deliver on the significant moral, staff engagement and patient-centred imperative for developing a more inclusive organisation in which all people are valued and treated as individuals – thereby delivering our Proud to CARE Trust values (compassionate, approachable, responsible, excellent) and our SPAR quality priorities (safe, personalised, accessible, recovery focused).

Monitoring diversity and inclusion at the Trust

All NHS trusts are required, under the Equality Act 2010, to publish annually how our activities as a service provider and employer affect people with different protected characteristics. We are also required to set, review and publish Equality Objectives at least every four years (see further below).

Within Combined Healthcare, it has been a really busy and exciting year for the development of diversity and inclusion throughout the Trust. We have worked hard to really raise the profile and awareness about inclusion issues and to embed a culture of diversity and inclusion within all our services.

Our latest report in compliance with the Equality Act 2010 can be accessed via the links below (both documents should be read together):

Additionally, NHS trusts are required to complete and publish an annual assessment against the Equality Delivery System (EDS2) and Workforce Race Equality Standard (WRES). You will find the latest versions of these documents below:

Equality and diversity objectives 2015/18

The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public sector organisations to:

Eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimization

Advance equality of opportunity

Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not share it.

Part of this includes publishing our Equality Objectives – please click here.

Please note: this document also contains a review of progress against our 2012/15 Equality Objectives.

Embracing equality, diversity and human rights

We are committed to ensuring that our services and employment practices are fair, accessible, responsive and appropriate for all patients, visitors and carers in the community we serve, as well as the talented and diverse workforce that we employ.

To achieve this we are we are working on eliminating all forms of discrimination on the grounds of people’s race, disability, gender, age, religion and belief and sexual orientation. We are also working to ensure that all individual’s human rights are protected and that vulnerable people are safe from abuse.

Human rights – dignity and respect

As citizens, employees, parents carers and service users we are all stakeholders in the NHS. We each have a duty to make sure that healthcare outcomes are of the highest standard.

We are developing and building on our equality and diversity framework by making sure that human rights (dignity and respect) are central to the way in which we deliver services. The promotion and development of our Single Equality Scheme will play an essential part in supporting this.

Modern Slavery Statement

The Trust is committed to ensuring that there is no Modern Slavery or Human Trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. We are committed to social and environmental responsibility and have zero tolerance for Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. Any identified concerns regarding Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking are escalated as part of the organisational safeguarding process working in conjunction with our partner agencies.